Need an easy way to stay current in your field?  Table-of-contents services are a great way to get the tables of contents of your favorite scholarly journals delivered to you via e-mail or RSS reader.  A couple that you might want to explore include:

ticTOCS (Journal Table of Contents Service)  – TicTOCS is a free resource that allows anyone to keep up to date with newly published scholarly material.  The site is simple to use:  just register for a free account where all of the tables of contents you choose will be permanently saved.  Then, search for the titles of your favorite journals.  You can then add them to your list and export them in a format that is easily imported into Google Reader.  The site currently only has about a thousand titles, so your favorites may not be there.

Libx is a Web 2.0 tool that connects you to the university library while exploring the web. Available for Firefox and Internet Explorer, this plug-in is customized especially for DePaul and pops a handy little search bar across the top of your browser window, so you can quickly and easily search the library catalog or check on whether the library has the journal you need online or in print.

Even better, when searching for titles from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or many other sites, you will see a little DePaul icon next to the book title allowing you to see if it is available in the DePaul Library.

Daniel’s recent posts focused on social bookmarking tools, which use the power of social networking to help users find websites that suit their interests. On a similar note, I thought I’d share one of my favorite tools, LibraryThing, which serves a similar purpose for books. For those not familiar with this resource, it is an online service that allows people to keep and share their favorite (or least favorite) books. A free account allows you to catalog up to 200 books. Paid accounts allow you to catalog as many as you wish and start at $10 for a year or just $25 for a lifetime!